


Echo

by editoress



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Byleth has canon-level trouble expressing herself, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, graphic but loving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:53:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25680121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editoress/pseuds/editoress
Summary: Unfortunately, the archbishop's office has the perfect acoustics for hearing your lover's voice.Tender smut with established Setleth.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Seteth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	Echo

When she turned to leave the archbishop’s office, Seteth took her hand, and Byleth stopped to remain in his grasp. It was a practiced move between them, to meet in the middle like so; he took her hand, and she allowed it, and he kissed her knuckles, lingering just inside propriety; and she would keep his hand. But this time he danced inside this lapse in her defenses. He pulled her off balance, to him. He took a deep breath and kissed her. It was just that—a tight inhale and a plunge, the way one might slice one’s own palm.

It was firm, pressing down on her from the height she forgot Seteth had. Byleth had seen him wield a spear on the battlefield and knew what kind of confidence and ferocity lay behind his conscientious manner. Even so, it was a surprise to feel that force here and now. She was not unused to his kisses, but so far they had been predictable: quick for stolen seconds when no one was looking, warm for rare moments of privacy, lingering for imminent departures. This one demanded an answer—surrender or fight back.

Byleth had never learned how to surrender.

She regained her balance, relying on his weight to steady hers, and responded in kind. Her lips shaped out his; her body pressed against him. He drew back and laughed, quick and breathless. “I take it that means you approve?” he asked. His tone was light, but his eyes searched hers for an answer. Byleth nodded resolutely. His smile faded into thoughtfulness. He reached up to trace her brow with gentle fingertips. “I’ve never seen that look on your face before,” he mused. “You will have to tell me what it means.”

Byleth herself didn’t know. Facial expressions came to her only by accident, and without her awareness. What she knew was that she wanted Seteth to bear down on her again. She wanted to feel the heat of his pulse. She wanted to be closer even than they were now, chest to chest, stirring the air between their faces. “I want this,” she said.

His touch paused at her temple for a solemn moment; and then it brushed down her cheek so that he could cup her jaw and kiss her again. It was slower but no less fierce than before, and this time Byleth learned, if not surrender, a little compromise in how her lips parted for him. She gasped when he released her, the quick breath of someone surfacing momentarily. And then she wrapped her fingers around his collar and pulled him down again.

Seteth leaned over her and trapped her close with one strong hand at her lower back. They stumbled slightly—him toward her, Byleth backwards—until the desk stopped them both. The wooden edge pinned her against him. She thrust out a hand to brace herself. Seteth stopped kissing her long enough to assess the situation. The rasp of their breathing echoed faintly back at them from the arched ceiling.

Seteth gathered her up in his arms and lifted her onto the desk. By instinct, Byleth sat so that her thighs were positioned on either side of his hips. Her blood was humming; she squeezed her legs to pull him against the pressure. Seteth hesitated. There was a high flush on his cheeks.

“Don’t stop,” she said.

Seteth smiled. His smile had ever been in his eyes, not the slight quirk of his lips. She loved the way the corners of his eyes turned up, crinkled, softened from their centuries and calculations. “As you command,” he murmured.

Seteth favored his right hand, she recalled faintly. Indeed, while his left hand kept its place firm against her lower back, it was his right that pulled her closer from the back of her knee and gripped her thigh. His kisses drew her up and tilted her head back, and she could not fight him for the distraction of the touch that circled her hip and played at her waist. He traced the curve of her ribs; her nerves thrummed like plucked strings.

Byleth wondered whether intimacy was always like this, or whether it was the waiting that had made it unbearable. Certainly she had long withheld the desire to tangle her fingers in his hair like this, to tug away that irksome collar and taste the heat of his bare skin, even if just with her palm. But she had not understood until now how she wanted kisses like this: not quick, simple reminders of his feelings, but this. His mouth commanded hers, trapped it again and again in search of something nameless. The perfect, kiss, perhaps. To her, they were all perfect pleasure until they faded, and then she welcomed the next breathless attempt.

“Byleth.”

The helpless way he said her name rebounded a thousand times off stone. The air itself shivered with the rough edge his voice had taken. Byleth shivered, too.

“We should,” he continued, kissing her again, “take this… somewhere else.”

Her only response was to wrap her legs decisively around his waist.

“ _Please_ ,” he insisted, exasperated. When he would not cooperate, Byleth kissed his neck, the hollow of his throat, the jutting line of his collarbone. His pulse was on her lips, fast and heavy. “Byleth…”

Byleth knew her voice was too mild to make Seteth understand the effect he had on her, but if she couldn’t intone emotion, perhaps he would hear her body’s reaction. So she kissed him once more and pleaded in his ear, “ _Seteth_.”

He inhaled sharply. His grip on her tightened almost painfully. She lifted her hips and found herself pressed to an unmistakable hardness. It startled a quiet noise of longing out of her.

Seteth pressed his face into the crook of her neck, groaning. “Byleth…” he said again. “You will be the death of me. Is this what you want?”

“Yes. Please.” It could have been her imagination, but the echo of her own voice seemed to carry an unfamiliar strain, a faint hint of the desire stirring her so frantically. “Do you want this?”

“Yes,” he breathed against her neck. He raised his head but moved no further away. His breath whispered past her ear. “Yes. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you.”

He was right, and that could have pained her, except for the fact that she could hear it in his voice. Byleth reached up and felt out the hard, angular line of his jaw. “Then tell me.”

“That would take some time.” He caught her hand deftly and straightened. There was something bright and burning in his eyes. It was even more entrancing than the sight of his disheveled hair. “More time than we have, I fear, before we are interrupted. Let me show you instead.”

He kissed her calloused palm, and a lifetime of gripping a sword did not stop her from feeling the reverence in that gesture. He closed his eyes to kiss the inside of her wrist; his soft exhale stirred her skin to goosebumps. His lips trailed an unhurried path up her arm. His other hand curled around her waist and slid across her back. His mouth reached her shoulder; he searched out the lacing of her shirt, fingers trailing along her spine. Byleth twisted, eager to help, but he stilled her hands. “Let me,” he said lowly. It filled the hollow space like a hymn. She obeyed.

He leaned over her, his arms wrapped around her, and she was left staring at the breach she had made in his official defenses: the dangling ends of his coat collar, the top of his shirt falling open to bare skin. For a moment, she was fascinated by how it shifted over the landscape of bone and muscle, the curling, forest green hair just visible at the shirt’s hem. In the next moment, a longing rose up from somewhere deep within and lifted her hands. She could not bear to be teased. She found the buttons of his coat and undid them swiftly.

Seteth smiled. She could feel the curve of his cheek against her temple. “Impatient?”

“I want to see you,” she whispered back.

His silence was tangible; it was the weight behind the slow slide of her shirt from her skin. Byleth pushed his coat off his shoulders, and he let it go. He stood over her just so: hair a mess, cheeks flushed, lips parted. The white shirt clung to the lines of his shoulders. His serious gaze was fixed on her to the exclusion of all else. The sight dazed her. But she would not suffer it forever, and she tugged at the shirt.

His attention did not waver. “You are beautiful,” he breathed, and then, “Yes—a moment—”

A moment, and then Byleth had her wish. Seteth was as lean and lithe as his movements suggested. She brushed a hand over hard planes of muscle from unknown years of battle. She could not bring herself to repeat his words— _you are beautiful_ —no matter how much she felt them, knowing they would sound disingenuous in her voice. Instead, she followed with her hands the angle of his waist tapering down to narrow hips. She pulled him nearer to kiss his sternum, as soft and meaningful a kiss as she could give, so that he would know.

And perhaps it had worked, because the moment she drew back, Seteth’s knuckles were brushing her cheek even as his eyes burned. At first, his descent was tender, but something flared as soon as their lips met. Byleth’s hands tangled in his hair, and Seteth wrapped both arms around her waist. His kisses forced her mouth open; his tongue explored her; his teeth, sharper than she had imagined, nipped her swollen lips. His hand cupped her breast, thumb teasing at her nipple. Was that his pulse she felt between her legs, or had her own heart come alive just for this?

“Seteth, _please_ ,” she managed, and no more than that. The rest of her entreaty was the shift of her hips against his.

Seteth let out a shuddering breath that tightened her throat. To her surprise, he lifted her from the desk. With her legs still around his waist, he carried her to the other end of the office, slowly knelt, and laid her down on the rug. He hovered over her, one hand still cupped protectively over the back of her neck, the first hints of uncertainty pulling at his expression. “Is this—”

Byleth nodded. “Here,” she said. The word rang around them, followed closely by the echoes of their strained breaths and the rasp of skin on skin. Her hair pooled beneath her; his spilled over pointed ears to frame his face, casting his searching eyes in shadow. She reached up and brushed a few locks aside to better see his features.

Seteth’s lips found her jawline and then closed over her throat. His weight surged against her until she could feel the stone of the floor. She cried out in both surprise and a keening pleasure. He only kissed her more fiercely in response—her collarbone, and now the flushed swell of her breast—and ignored the demanding arch of her back when he shifted away from her again. His fingers caught the hem of her tights. This time he let her help undress herself; Byleth slid her tights down while he tossed her boots aside. He stripped the bunched tights from her ankles, almost frantic. But not quite. If forced to describe that wild light in his eyes, Byleth would call it hungry.

His hands were hungry, too, exploring up her calves and tracing their winding way across her inner thighs. They cupped her hips from below. Seteth met her gaze, and finally she could see it in him—something centuries old, something not human. She did not flinch away, but stared, captivated. “I want you,” she said. She was breathless now, and rebounded from the arched ceiling her voice sounded like the full-hearted sigh of a real woman, like a lover’s plea.

That strange look did not leave him, but something of the man came back, too, awe and adoration breaking through in his expression. “I am yours,” he replied, a raspy edge to his voice. His head dipped; his warm breath brushed between her legs with aching promise. “Let me give this to you.”

She swallowed and nodded.

He began softly, and Byleth was grateful; she hadn’t known any kiss could send lightning skittering up her stomach to steal her breath away. Seteth took his slow, lingering time, and even that she could barely fathom. His tongue parted her lips smoothly and caressed the wetness between them. Her straining exhale became a soft moan; she choked out a cry when he found the apex of her pleasure. It reverberated too loudly and too suddenly in the barren office. Byleth clamped a hand over her mouth, suppressing another groan.

“Byleth,” he chided. His deep green eyes were otherworldly, but his voice was soft and familiar. “My love, I want to hear you.”

The worry that they might be caught was drowned out by elation that he enjoyed the sound of her. And even if she had cared to argue, she lost the presence of mind to do so when he enclosed her clit with a teasing kiss, gently tugging it out. Her hand flew away from her face to claw the rug. The blinding, molten sensation wrung a high howl out of her throat. She hooked her knees over Seteth’s shoulders, trying to drag him closer. Those hard, broad shoulders began to heave as his kisses deepened. His tongue slipped into her and curled, probing—and again, and again. He drew at her already-swollen lips with sucking kisses. Byleth’s blood was aflame. The rhythm of his touch was the only pulse her body knew. She panted and whimpered until the stone walls thrilled with it, one sound fading into another.

Byleth levered herself up on her elbows and reached out to thread her fingers through his hair. She nudged him until he looked up. His eyes were wide; his lips were open, slick and shining. Under her guidance, he crawled forward, and she kissed him with his hands braced on either side of her waist. He tasted salty; sweat clung to his hair. She sank down, and he followed wordlessly. His back was all corded muscle under her hand, tense and ready. He was nearly on top of her.

Seteth bowed his head until it rested on her shoulder. His low rumble of frustration sounded directly in her ear. “Wait,” he said. “Let me finish what I’ve started.” He leaned back, and she must have been frowning, because he kissed her again, tenderly. “We have time.”

Mollified, Byleth released him. She let her hand linger in his hair, and he kissed that, too, as he drew out of her reach. Only then did Byleth lie back with a long, shuddering exhale. It was wrenched into a sharp gasp when he skillfully pulled at her clit again, this time with less mercy. Her nerves danced at his touch. Every pull and stroke of his mouth fed the building heat that threatened to consume her. She strained to press herself against him, and he obliged her more and more forcefully. She moaned helplessly and heard it reflected back a thousand times, until she didn’t know which sound she was making, until it began to take shape. “Seteth,” she managed, and then she wailed more urgently, “Seteth!”

His hands tightened on her hips in response. He groaned into her, and she could not say whether it was the vibration or the sound that was her undoing. She wanted to call out for him again, but her breath was coming so fast and shallow that all she could manage was a wordless cry. The sound spiraled up into the vaulted ceiling and rang around them. All that heat and pressure crashed through her body, wracking her with excruciating delight.

Byleth came back to herself in deep, ragged breaths. Traces of her cry were still settling in the air. Seteth was offering small, comforting kisses to the inside of her thigh. His knuckles rubbed soothing circles over one hip. For a moment, he watched her with blank wonder; and then the corners of his eyes turned up. “You’re smiling,” he murmured.

Byleth didn’t doubt it. In that moment she could have floated away on her happiness, except that Seteth was still touching her. For that matter, his consoling gestures were not calming her in the least. The aftermath of her bliss began to morph into greedy desire. She shifted her hips. Seteth only hummed in reply and pressed another kiss to her slick inner thigh. She pushed herself upright. “Well? Don’t just sit there.”

A single, breathless laugh escaped him, and he obediently straightened and moved closer. Byleth rewarded him with eager kisses. He drank them up like a man dying of thirst, though his mouth was wet already. Her hands slid down from his chest to the lines of his hips and slowly inward. He twitched at her touch, breath hitching. She admitted, “I want to hear you, too.”

“You will,” he promised. He wrapped an arm around her. Their noses nearly touched, but Seteth did not close the distance. He only gazed at her as he laid her back with infinite care. It was Byleth who brushed his hair aside and took his face in both hands so that she could kiss him. She drew him down, closer. Their legs tangled together.

Seteth slid into her almost tentatively, giving her time to angle with him. And then—they fit together so perfectly that she could think of nothing else. She wanted nothing else; they could get no closer than this. She had all of him at once in her arms, bare, flushed skin under her hands, fingers in her hair, his voice in her ear.

He rocked his hips, hot breath fluttering on her neck. And again. His exhale was cut short by a desperate offering of a kiss. His whole body rolled into the thrust of his hips. He built a patient rhythm that steadily drove her to the edge as over and over again they became whole, deeper, closer, for just an instant before he retreated and tried anew. Seteth pushed her hands up above her head, leaving her stretched defenseless beneath him, and Byleth found she didn’t mind.

“Do you understand?” he asked her, voice low. “Can you feel how I’ve longed for this? How badly I’ve wanted to hold you?” His lips were by her ear. “To make you happy?” The words came out half-choked through harsh breaths. “You asked me to tell you. I cannot. I don’t have the words… for…”

Byleth slipped one hand free from his grasp and pressed it to his cheek, bringing them eye to eye. She could barely speak. “I love you,” she said.

It felt anticlimactic against his passionate declaration, and it was not the first time he’d heard it. Even so, Seteth smiled, truly smiled like nothing else she had ever seen. “I love you,” he replied. He groaned, inhaled sharply, and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you. Byleth—"

He became her heartbeat, the pulse that moved her blood and assured her that she was alive. Every catch and quake of his breath, amplified by the chamber, thrilled down her spine and drew her hips up against his. The heat was different this time, born of friction and weight. And this time, Seteth whispered her name so she could hear, and she held him.

When she came this time, her pleasure surged in time with his thrusts. She let out a keening sigh, squirming. He could feel it, too; his breath came feverishly fast and shallow. “Byleth,” he rasped.

Seteth shook. He bared sharp teeth in a strangled moan. He radiated heat like a fire. And then he was gasping for breath, shuddering and exhausted above her. They lay like that; Byleth didn’t know how long, because time became elusive when he looked at her so. She could have met that gaze forever.

He pulled her close and smoothly rolled so that he lay on his back and she atop him. Byleth stretched languidly at once. She combed her fingers through his damp hair to fully reveal his face. He smiled at her, drowsily, beautifully.

He rubbed a hand over her back as she peppered him with tired little kisses. “Are you happy?” he asked.

“Mhmm,” she said, a hum into his cheek. “This is everything I could want. All the time.”

He raised an eyebrow, but he looked far too weary and content to be daunting. “I hope you don’t intend to make a habit of making love in the archbishop’s office.”

Byleth closed her eyes and settled her head onto his chest, right over his heart.

“Byleth?” he prompted. “Love?”

His voice filled the air around them, like a song, soft and full of worship. Byleth listened to it sing and, without trying at all, smiled to herself.


End file.
